Dr Divya Anand1, Dr. Harmeet Singh2
1Iilm, New Delhi, India, 2Cluster University, Jammu, India
Biography:
Dr. Divya Anand is an Associate Dean and an Assistant Professor at IILM, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, India
Dr. Harmeet Singh is an Assistant Professor at Cluster University, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Abstract:
Afghanistan, a country in the western Himalayan region in South Asia, is known to be a hot spot for trafficking not only drugs but also persons. There exist numerous factors contributing to the human trafficking phenomenon, including weak political culture, ethnic cleavages, economic instability, lack of basic services and security, decades of war and internal conflicts. The lack of peaceful and stable environment has resulted in the rise in organized crime activities and insecurity especially among the weaker and vulnerable sections of the society i.e. women and children. The situation worsened in August 2021 with the socio-political changes, when Taliban 2.0 took over political control resorting to amplified human trafficking practices in the name of protecting socio-religious practices and cultural norms and to deal with an increased economic insecurity. There are reports highlighting the increasing vulnerabilities of an already weaker section of the society, where women and children are denied basic rights and forced to get involved in illegal practices. Not surprisingly, even boys are made the easy targets by the Taliban to be involved in Bacha Bazi (exploitation of boys by men for sexual gratification). Also, it is reported that there is a surge in the already existing internal displacement persons’ graph, with 700,000-800,000 additional Afghans being internally displaced, pushing women and children at the verge of being trafficked at a larger scale. This paper will attempt to understand as to why the menace of Human Trafficking (mainly women and children) is making an uptick in the context of Afghanistan.